file archive software | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

An unknown threat actor used a malicious self-extracting archive ( SFX ) file in an attempt to establish persistent backdoor access to a victim's environment, new findings from CrowdStrike show. SFX files are capable of extracting the data contained within them without the need for dedicated software to display the file contents. It achieves this by including a decompressor stub, a piece of code that's executed to unpack the archive. "However, SFX archive files can also contain hidden malicious functionality that may not be immediately visible to the file's recipient, and could be missed by technology-based detections alone," CrowdStrike researcher Jai Minton  said . In the case investigated by the cybersecurity firm, compromised credentials to a system were used to run a legitimate Windows accessibility application called Utility Manager (utilman.exe) and subsequently launch a password-protected SFX file. This, in turn, is made possible by  configuring a de

It's not just the critical Drupal vulnerability that is being exploited by in the wild  cybercriminals to attack vulnerable websites that have not yet applied patches already available by its developers, but hackers are also exploiting a critical WinRAR vulnerability that was also revealed last week. A few days ago, The Hacker News reported about a 19-year-old remote code execution vulnerability disclosed by Check Point in the UNACEV2.dll library of WinRAR that could allow a maliciously-crafted ACE archive file to execute arbitrary code on a targeted system. WinRAR is a popular Windows file compression application with 500 million users worldwide, but a critical "Absolute Path Traversal" bug (CVE-2018-20250) in its old third-party library, called UNACEV2.DLL, could allow attackers to extract a compressed executable file from the ACE archive to one of the Windows Startup folders, where the file would automatically run on the next reboot. To successfully exploit the

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo